New Scientist has a long article about the renewed interest among scientists in the possible medical uses of psychedelic drugs like LSD, Psilocybin, DMT, and Ketamine:
Since 2001, psychiatrist Francisco Moreno of the University of Arizona in Tucson has been testing psilocybin as a treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder. Psychotherapy and antidepressants such as Prozac help many patients, but some have such severe symptoms and are so resistant to treatment that they turn to electroshock therapy and even brain surgery. As with the work on cluster headaches, Moreno's study was motivated by reports from people with OCD that psilocybin relieves their symptoms.So far, Moreno has given both sub-psychedelic and psychedelic doses of pure psilocybin to nine treatment-resistant OCD subjects, in a total of 29 therapy sessions. His preliminary findings suggest firstly that it is safe to ingest psilocybin, which was a primary concern of the trial. Beyond that, Moreno calls his results "promising", but won't discuss them further, since he plans to submit a paper to a peer-reviewed journal this year.
Link (Thanks to Nick Philip for the link and the illustration!)
